Sams Teach Yourself UNIX® in 24 Hours Second Edition

Hour 10. An Introduction to the vi Editor

Various editors may be included with your UNIX system, including ed, ex, vi, and emacs. The latter two use the entire screen, a big advantage, and both are powerful editors. You learn about both in the next few hours. I focus on vi, however, because I believe it's easier and, perhaps more importantly, it's guaranteed to always be part of UNIX, whereas many vendors omit emacs, forcing you to find it yourself.

The next few hours focus on full-screen editing tools for UNIX. First you'll learn how to use vi to create and modify files. This hour covers the basics, including how to move around in the file and how to insert and delete characters, words, and lines. The second hour adds how to search for specific ...